Education: The Merchant Scholars

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The American university has become so involved in industrial and Government research that it has lost sight of its basic goal: teaching students. This is the conclusion reached by two provocative new books on higher learning by authors with widely divergent views and backgrounds. In The American University Columbia University's former provost, Jacques Barzun, charges that "a big corporation has replaced the once self-centered company of scholars and has thereby put itself at the mercy of many publics." New Republic Contributing Editor James Ridgeway, in The Closed Corporation, puts the case more brusquely: "Most Americans believe that universities are places where professors teach students. They are wrong. In fact, the university looks more like a center for industrial activity than a community of scholars."

Cultural Historian Barzun is a traditionalist who feels that "the university is an institution transcending time and geography." He is distressed because too many academic institutions have become too involved with contemporary problems, too influenced by a misguided zeal for community service. The trouble, Barzun says, can be traced to a "great shift to research after 1945." One inevitable result has been the student riots, the worst of which occurred at Columbia soon after Barzun completed his manuscripts. He is noticeably cool to student rioters, although he sympathizes with some of their protests. So many professors are busy with activities outside the classroom, he says, that they have become guilty of slipshod teaching, poor preparation, dull lectures, careless assignments, late markings and a cavalier attitude that eventually justifies the anger of revolutionary undergraduates at a depersonalized system.

No Talent. Academic interest in research and problem-solving, says Barzun, has led the universities to undertake Government or foundation projects that other agencies may be better equipped to handle. "A dozen of the leading universities," he says, "are now managing large programs of urban renewal and race relations, engaging in the improvement of- housing and rehabilitation of moral derelicts, uplifting economically depressed areas, or supplying art to the community—all this without evidence that they are equipped with the talent, organization or experience to succeed." Barzun agrees with the late Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset that the university "has abandoned almost entirely the teaching or transmission of culture."

Making Money. Ridgeway is even harsher in his judgment of the company of scholars. He agrees that there has been too large a shift into research. But what bothers him even more is the ethics of certain connections between the university and private industry or Government. Far too many professors, he says, are on corporate payrolls, turning out studies concerned with lobbying or product promotion rather than the advancement of knowledge.